← Stand to Reason Weekly Podcast
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A
Well, hello, friends, and welcome to the show. Show. I am actually in northern Wisconsin right now at my retreat. I'm actually in my buddy's house. And if you're watching visually, it looks weird because behind me on the wall of my buddy's house in this room where I'm recording is not a deer, which would be appropriate for the environment here, but an African, what, kudu, or something like that. So I had to have them change that so it looks like I'm in the north woods, which is where I'm at. Anyway, glad you joined me today and thank you for being of the show. I have some interesting things to share with you as we start out before we get your calls, and you're welcome to call in if you'd like, and then we chat with you. I don't know if you're listening live through live streaming or whatever. Normally I take our calls now, but I want to bring you up to date. It's about something that's been happening at Stand, a reason for the last couple of months that you don't know about, except for some of you may have discovered it yesterday. And that has to do with a special podcast that I was part of a few weeks ago, and that actually dropped yesterday. In other words, it aired so that if anybody wanted to watch it, they're welcome to do so. And this whole enterprise started actually late June, or maybe it was mid June. I was here up in Wisconsin when the opportunity came down and I was contacted or the team was contacted by an organization called the Diary of a CEO. Now that's the name of the podcast and frankly, I'd never heard of it before. Or Stephen Bartlett, who is the host for the show. But they asked if I'd be willing to come on with a panel and discuss for a few hours the issue of meaning and significance in life. Because there were lots of statistics that were cited on the show and that Stephen was concerned about. He actually covers a wide variety of topics on his show, but he wanted to do a group discussion from three different, distinctly different points of view on how we would approach this issue of meaning and significance. Of course, I was the Christian theist. There was an atheist also, and then there was also a spiritual guide type person who was into neuropsychology and also to Hinduism and Buddhism. I'll tell you more about them in just a moment. But anyway, so there were the three perspectives. And of course, if I get an opportunity to be on a show where I can talk to lots of people about meaning and purpose, especially from the Christian perspective. Not just that, it's a perspective. I don't want to relativism like that. It isn't like relativize it like that. My view isn't like, well, here's our faith tradition teaches this and yours may teach that and everybody has a different point of view. But here's my point of view. No, I think what I hold to as a faith tradition, if you will, is also a fact. I think it's the truth, it's the true story of reality. So I want to let people know what the world is actually like. And one of the advantages that I have is, is that so much of the things that I hold to be true, most people already know to be true, like objective morality. This is why there's a common complaint about the problem of evil, because they understand that morality is objective. It's not just a make me up and not a matter of personal opinion. Because if it was, there wouldn't be a problem of evil in the world out there. It'll just be the problem of different people's opinions about what's right and wrong and things they don't like. I just use that as one example because my conviction is that the Christian story of reality is the best explanation for the way things actually are. And so I was happy to talk about this, even though I didn't know what I was getting myself into. When I found out a little bit more about the program. I found out that this program is one of the most listened to programs in the world. It's like number four, number five on audio. But when it comes to video, and this is a video product, this particular podcast, I found out was the second most watched video podcast in the world. Joe Rogan was number one, this was number two. And there, I think there are 12 million subscribers to this show and over 20 million people who watch it. Now, of course, that doesn't mean that all 20 million are watching every episode and it varies between episodes, but characteristically, it's a million and a half or more that watch any given episode. So this gives me an opportunity to be in a very popular venue with a massive footprint to potentially talk to more people that I've ever talked to before in one sitting about some of the most important things that we can ever discuss. Meaning, life's meaning and life's purpose. Now, by the way, I see those as connected. They're not synonyms. That purpose is tied to meaning and meaning is objective. If there is a meaning to life and if you can determine what the Meaning about life is then you align your purposes with the meaning of life. Anyway, that's the discussion and there are clearly three different points of view reflected here. And like I said, I didn't know much about this program. And with shows like this, characteristically you have an interview beforehand. And this particular interview was online. It was a zoom interview basically. And two of the staff of the Diary of a CEO by acronym, it's called doac D O A C. So I'll refer to it as that. We zoomed out when I was here in June and we did an interview and they wanted to make sure that I was approved, appropriate guest. They had seen me on another interview apparently and just kind of stumbled across me. I think was a interview I'd done with Kirk Cameron and takeaways, which by the way, coming up in about three weeks I'll be doing another one with him. But in any event, they saw that, they said this is the kind of guy we think would represent the Christian view of reality or the Christian understanding of meaning and significance. So we'll talk to him. And after our interview, everything was green light, all things cleared and we were ready to go. The interview was scheduled for July 3rd in Los Angeles. Of course, I was in Wisconsin at the time, so I had to leave my digs here and kind of my vacation with my daughter. She was one out with me at the time, my 17 year old, and get in a flight and fly to LA and stay for the day, film there in Hollywood at their studios and then get on a red eye that night, the 3rd of July and fly back so I could spend 4th of July with my daughter who is still here in Wisconsin with her friends. Anyway, that was the plan. I had only had just a couple of weeks, not even that, maybe two weeks of advance notice and I was given some insight about how the program was to go. This is not a combative kind of program. They don't want a gladiator event. They want thoughtful people engaging thoughtfully about thoughtful issues. All right, so that's Stephen Bartlett. It's one of the reasons that his program is so popular. But across the table from me was, I'm just going to call him Dr. K. His first name was Alok and I can't pronounce his last name. It's an Indian last name. But he spent eight years studying in an ashram of some sort in India. Although he was raised in the United States, his ethnicity is Indian. He went back to India to study to be a Buddhist monk and then came back to the United States and went to medical school and then became a doctor, then became a psychiatrist, and then became a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School. So this guy's a heavyweight. He's got his own program and lots of followers. That was the spiritualist side. I was the Christian theist side. And then across from me at the table, as it turned out, was Alex o', Connor, who. I know I'm embarrassed to say this, but I'm not a YouTube kind of guy. I'm not watching lots of stuff online. But Tim told me, Tim Barnett, Mr. B. That Alex O' Connor is the most famous atheist in the world right now. And he's only 26 years old. And many of you who heard that name know who he is, all right? And he is very, very bright. He's very clever, he's very alert and used to interactive debating circumstances. And sometimes he can be quite mellow, and sometimes he can be very, very aggressive. And in fact, when I texted William Lane Craig, who has had some interactions with Alex, who, like I said, could be very nice, and if you watch some of his podcasts, for example, with John Lennox, there's very amicable conversation. Other ones, he's quite aggressive. And Bill Craig said, be careful because Alex will eviscerate you if you give him the opportunity. Okay. It's tough competition, even though this was not a combative circumstance. And frankly, I don't like those engagements that are like, you know, gladiator events and who can draw first blood. And you're cheering for your own side in that way, that's not helpful. I don't want to be part of that kind of thing. All right. Any event, we are scheduled for that July 3rd, I got on the plane, took off with modest preparation because I didn't have much time. And when I landed on the tarmac on, which was July 2nd, I opened my phone and there it was, an alert that the event had been canceled. Steven couldn't get out of England to do the thing in la, and so it was all over with. So I was still scheduled to fly out the next. The next day for the red eye to come back on the by the fourth. But nevertheless, I just met my wife, we spent the day together, had dinner together, and then off I was to Wisconsin. Again, quite disappointed. Now they said, really sorry we couldn't manage this, couldn't avoid this. It's just the way it goes sometimes, and we'd love to have you at a later date. Well, you know, famous last words, I was quite disappointed and we wanted to showcase not only what I had to offer to that large audience, but also stand a reason any event with an. In a couple of weeks we got a new notice. They said we got you scheduled again September 8th in New York City and we're going to do the broadcast there. So sure enough, on the 7th, my wife and I flew out and met Greg Cash, our videographer there, who could pick up what they call B roll, just different video clips from the whole process to put something together for you. And he couldn't go in the studio while we were filming, but nevertheless he was there and it was good to have my wife there and I was glad to have that. So they were in the green room while this entire thing was being filled. Now, this gave me a couple more weeks to get ready and I had an opportunity to watch a number of videos, especially of Alex, and get a sense of the kind of person I guess I was up against. And I don't mean person like character. I mean, what was my opposition? Obviously he's not a Christian, he's an atheist. Sometimes he says maybe an agnostic. All right, I'll buy that. I think there's some confusion about terms there. Nevertheless, just for the record, because atheist, agnostic and Christian theists are not knowledge categories, they're belief categories. You can't say you're an agnostic if you believe there is no God, but you don't know for sure. So you're an agnostic if you believe there is no God, whether you know it or not, you're an atheist. Just like a person who believes in God whether he knows for sure or not, is a theist. All right? And if you don't have a belief one way or another because you're not sure where to put your belief that you're. You're an agnostic in any event. And so I got a chance to check that out and understand his views, where he's coming from, some of his ideas, etc. I'm not going to go through a blow by blow on the event, actually. Tim Barnett and I, in a couple of days we're going to be taking clips from the final edited version, which came out Monday. It would be yesterday for my timing. And so that would be the Monday, the 29th. And though. And you can go see yourself, if you go to str.org there's going to be a link. Actually, I went to their own website and I actually, I didn't find it on their website, but they have it posted on YouTube and on Facebook and whatever stand a reason Has a link for you now. There were eight cameras of this shoot. Eight. And we were in a darkened room, roundtable, lights, four of us around. And I had a strategy that I had worked out, a way that I wanted to approach this. And I did my best to get launched with my opening remarks on the strategy. But I wasn't trying to do too much work in the first couple of comments because this isn't a half hour show, this is a three to four hour show, finished form. As it turned out, those eight cameras are rolling for over five hours now. I never looked at my watch but I went in at 11 New York time and when I came out it was 4:15 and I was exhausted over 5 hours of raw material, 3 hours and 23 minutes or whatever for the final form. So a lot got left on the cutting room floor. I was concerned about how much of my contribution would have been left on the floor. But it turned out as I watched the final thing yesterday, went through and took, made notes for the interaction I'll have with, with Tim Barnett next weekend with clips which we're planning to air next week. And we're planning to put the whole thing, not just the pieces for the show, but maybe an extended version on YouTube so you can get our entire take on it, so to speak. But I'd like you to watch it first. I'd like you to watch it and I'd like you to watch it with a critical eye, so to speak. I want you to think about the issue which is meaning and purpose. And for you, if you're a follower of Christ, if you're a Christian and you hold to the, a fairly robust Christian worldview, the story of reality, then I want you to be thinking about how you might position yourself if you were in a discussion with somebody about meaning and purpose. How would you understand meaning and purpose that follows from it? And then how would you defend that in light of Christianity, in light of some other views that are offered? There are two other stories of reality that were on the table. A kind of a mystical, you might call it New Age that would probably be giving kind of the soft sell to Dr. K's view. He is much more sophisticated. I think he was a very educated Buddhist, Hindu and there was a mixture of that in there and also a psychotherapist. But nevertheless there was this kind of the spiritualist perspective and then there's the atheist perspective. That's what you're up against. And who knows, maybe you'll never be in a conversation like this, but it'd Be good for you. In my view, if you think about how you might acquit yourself given those two views, even if you don't know a lot about them, you can imagine some. And how would you frame the Christian view, what the world is like, with regards to ultimate meaning, transcendent meaning, and then ultimate purpose in our lives? How does that meaning work out in the things that we do with our lives? How would you characterize that? Defend it as a follower of Christ and then watch the podcast. And you might have to watch it in chunks because it's long, but these longer podcasts are really popular and if they're really interesting, people will keep listening. All right? And this is why they're long, because there's lots of ways they can go. Now, there are plenty of ins and outs in this conversation, and I actually didn't do most of the talking. I would say Maybe I had 20% of the conversation. Now, Stephen was the interviewer, he is the questioner. He's the one who's kind of getting things started, laying out the basic premises. But he really wanted us, and that's how he instructed us before the camera started rolling. He wanted us to engage each other. All right? And so that means it's going to be a little bit free flowing, kind of wild west ish, if you will. Not necessarily filled with conflict, but not so well guided. And that's actually how it turned out. And I thought in a number of cases, gee, I don't know how I can get into the conversation that was going on between Dr. K and, say, Alex O'. Connor. Even if I had some things to say, I'm aware not just of my strategic approach, the broad thing that I want to accomplish in those few hours together, and also the tactical maneuvers that I might use in the process of the conversation in order to make my points well, but also of a larger kind of structure going on. And I'm not sure the best way of putting it, how, how you use your time, how you come across with eight cameras rolling. And of course there's lots of time. It's a longer show, but after a while you want to get in, but you don't want to sound rude or abrupt or you don't want to sound excessively dogmatic. All of those things are going on in my mind, the dynamic, the larger dynamic of this conversation. So when you watch it, I want you to be aware of those things. And the tactical elements are really important. Now, just so you know, and to give you an idea of my own preparation for this I got together with the content providers at standardism. I call them my young guns. You know, most of them. Alan and Tim and Amy and John and Megan and. And a trip. And who am I living out? I feel like I'm leaving somebody else out, but sorry if I did. Okay. You know who they are, our main players, our content providers, because I wanted their input. And we had seen a couple of clips, particularly of Alex, because he was the one I was most concerned with because he is positioned ideologically, by the way, he's British and so is Stephen. And so both of them, especially Alex, because he's the interlocutor, so to speak. He's the one I'm going to be back and forth with. They got an advantage because they got a British accent, and it doesn't matter what they say, they always sound right, certainly intelligent. And he is very, very bright. Okay. And very skilled at this kind of interaction. Okay. So we were watching videos and then we're talking together. Okay. What would you say? How would you manage this? How would you comport yourself in this? What would be your maneuvers given this setting that we just watched Alex and with some other Christian apologists, and that was very helpful. And I need that kind of help, my colleagues, their input. Okay. And part of the reason is I do not want to take my competition in a thing like this lightly. I want to take it seriously. All right? And you can't trifle with people who are operating at this level because they'll hand you their head, your head on a platter with millions of people watching if you're not careful. And I don't want that, obviously, for myself. Nobody likes to get, in a sense, humiliated. But that's not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is how it makes the view I represent look. And I don't want to misrepresent nor mischaracterize, nor mishandle the truth or engage in a way that makes the truth look false. This is, by the way, is one of the reasons that debates are dangerous. This was not a debate formally. It was a better circumstance where you have discussion, much better atmosphere. Debates are much more contrarian. And you have people taking sides and they're already polarized, and then they get galvanized, more set in their polarized views while they're watching their champion wield the sword, that arena, and waiting to draw, to rather cheer that person on. If their champion can draw first blood. I don't care for that environment. I don't think it's helpful. And I've done a Number of debates in the past, but I don't do them anymore. I'm open to this, what we did, because it's more amicable and it's more friendly and it's. It's. I think it's more conducive to productive interaction and conversation. Okay, just saying. But in either case, they are both dangerous, especially debates, because a lot of times the persuasion element of these interactions hinges on who plays the game better. And there's a gamesmanship that's involved in these things that any player that has to be aware of. And if you get outmaneuvered, then your view may look compromised, even if your view is the true one. In other words, in these kind of engagements, especially in debates, more formalized debates, the best idea doesn't always win with regards to the audience. And it might be that the person representing the truth might win on the merits. He says the right things and they're true things, but it doesn't persuade the audience because the other side sounded more clever or was able to make his view look better than it actually is and the Christian view look worse. So these are all elements that I have in mind when I'm going in to this engagement. Okay, now, how did it go? I think it actually went pretty well, particularly when I saw the final edit. And, you know, there's a sense in which after these things are done and after more than five hours, I was exhausted. It was constant concentration for five hours. I've had some tough interviews. One with the BBC on abortion, that took me maybe half hour. And that was hard because this gal was after me and this was an international broadcast and she was not even handed and not a pro lifer, and she was looking for blood, all right? And she was capable of causing bleeding. So I'm focused for 20 minutes or half an hour. This was five hours, five hours more than that, actually. And I'm thinking, thinking, thinking the entire time. So there my. As I'm looking, was I looking back initially after those hours? I wish that I had got to say more than I thought I got to say in the final edit, of course, you got two hours of stuff laying on the cutting room floor. All right, well, that's. Something's going to be lost. And it turned out some of my good stuff, what I thought was lost too. But in balance, there were a number of things that I got to speak through, speak to. And I think clearly and graciously and calmly and confidently. And I also had to contend with Alex. He was combative on a number of different Points. And so there was a bit of a steamroller thing going on. There were hard challenges, ways of framing the questions that right out of the gate make your own view look not so hot. And all of that I had to navigate through. Okay. And so you might even be thinking when you watch this, and I hope you do, I think it'll be an educational experience for you. All right? But I want you to not only think in advance how you might position yourself as a follower of Christ, making the case about meaning and about purpose. Because, I mean, from a strategic perspective. My point was. And this point got edited out from the beginning, unfortunately, but I was able to revisit it. And that's another important factor in a thing like this. The main points you want to revisit a number of times, maybe from a little different angles, but you want people to remember them, was that either there is objective meaning or not. If there is objective meaning, then there is an objective person who has made you for a meaningful purpose, made you meaningful for a meaningful purpose. If there is no God who made you and invested you with meaning, then there is no objective meaning. And then your purpose is going to be whatever, all right? And whatever means whatever it might be. You know, Mother Teresa, all right, she did a great job. She had her meaning and purpose. Now, obviously she believed in a transcendent meaning and purpose. But you could mimic Mother Teresa or you could mimic Pol Pot, IDI Amin, Lenin, Mao, murderers of millions, or sex slave traders. Why not? There is no moral distinction between the purposes. If there isn't an objective meaning that has itself moral substance, if you're just in a world where molecules are flying and that's it, well, then, whatever. Choose your own way. But if it seems that there is real meaning in the world, and frankly, this was my opening point that was left on the cutting room floor that Augustine has said, lord, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. And in fact, the reason we were even talking around that table was because our hearts were restless and we were identifying the restlessness of a whole generation that seems without a. Any mooring. And my point was, well, you cut yourself away from your mooring, which is God, then you're going to be without mooring. Now you're just adrift and you're subject to every wind and wave of calamity. Whatever happens, happens. And that's all you could say about it. It's just a bunch of stuff. And you do your best to make decisions that are meaningful to you. Personally, that's the existentialists kind of answer. And this is the way you do you. I mean, this is the way the world is. We're set adrift. We shouldn't be surprised that people have this feeling. But the fact that they are hungering and feel a little restless is evidence, as CS Lewis has pointed out in his argument for desire, evidence that there is a mooring, there is a meaning. We have hungers for things because there are things that satisfy those hungers. And our hungers are not just physical. We have hunger for food. There's food to satisfy. We have thirst for liquid water. Then there is liquid to satisfy the thirst. We have a hunger for meaning and significance. Now, I don't see any naturalistic characterization that can make any sense of that. And that was an issue that came up because Alex wanted to just punt to evolution on every single point that I was making and wave the wand of evolution. That's not going to work for a number of reasons. I've talked about that before, but I again, I don't want to get into too much detail here, but I just want to give you the general flow. For me, one last thing I want to point out and then I'm going to go to calls after a break, and that is that I think that this, if you watch this for no other reason than to see Masters int. Masters, let me back up put it this way. People who have mastered the tactical approach at work watch it. And I'm not talking about me. I have my own capabilities tactically. I wrote a book about it, but I found her about myself sometimes in difficult circumstances. These men did a fabulous job in raising clarification questions. What do you mean by that? And you will see this time and time and time again by both Dr. K and by Alex O'. Connor. They keep asking the same questions because they want clarification, they want to get clear on something. And especially in Alex's circumstance, I don't think Alex wanted to be trapped. He didn't want to be trapped by other questions. And so when there was this kind of a Colombo number three happening, in other words, asking questions to make a point, and the questions are linked together. So you believe this, right? And you agree with this, right? You agree with this light. Well, these things lead somewhere and somewhere down the line there's likely to be a kind of gotcha moment where the affirmations you've been making to the questions kind of trapped you. All right, now I teach this, and this is what street smarts is in spades. The third use of Columbo on steroids kind of thing. But the entrapment that I'm encouraging is not illicit. Okay, if you read Peter Magosian's book on, what is it? A Handbook for Training Atheists, he uses the same thing, but I don't think he uses it fairly oftentimes. But nevertheless, we don't want to trap people illicitly. We want them to be stuck by the logical conclusion of their own views or their own observations about some things about the world that end up leading to a place they don't want to go. And this is holding their feet to the fire. Well, a lot of that went on too, especially with Dr. K. And you could see Alex just backing off, essentially saying, I'm not going to go there. What are you getting at? It was very clever and not disingenuous, not inappropriate, it was skillful. So if you do nothing else but listen for the tactical maneuvering that is going on there, do that. Now there are a couple of occasions where I thought, you know, Alex's point especially committed suicide. It was self refuting and he was trying to make the theist view with regards to suffering in the world look awful when in fact it turned out that he's an atheist. So in his view there is absolutely no moral content to any suffering of any kind. Not just animal suffering, but human suffering as well. So. And I got to capitalize on that a little bit. Hopefully I've given you enough information to give you one, an idea about how I navigate through issues like this and challenges like this, how I prepare, how I take advantage of my wonderful team and others. Like I texted Bill Craig or Wes Huff or whatever to kind of get some insight and, and how I then try to strategize, have a basic game plan that allows me to know how to maneuver there. But keep in mind that I think it was. Who's the boxer, Mike Tyson, who said, yeah, you can have a game plan for a boxing match until somebody punches you in the face. It kind of changes things. So you got to have a game plan but you don't know if you're going to be able to execute it, but that gives you some way to do it. And then having a capability to be tactically sound in your maneuvering, that's going to make a difference too. And of course it also helps if you have the truth and you have a sense probably of some of the challenges you're going to get faced with and how you might answer them. Now what Tim and I are going to do which will come up next week. And for the. We're planning on both of the shows next week being our thing, and they'll probably be a broader, a longer piece that will. Those shows will be part of, but will come out on YouTube. You want to watch the whole thing uninterrupted, but it's going to be to some degree, what did I learn by what I didn't say when I could have. When you think back on events like this, you see everything kind of in slow motion. It's just, oh, oh, there's a chance. Oh, I see that. I didn't catch that. Now I'm watching it in slow motion in your memory, and you see things you didn't see. And so there is a kind of what you might call a fog of war. A fog of war. You're in the middle of it, and then things are not as clear as they are afterwards. Nevertheless, afterwards, as I say in the tactics book, is the best time for you to review what you said and what you might have said and how you could have made the point if you were faster on your feet or had more time. And that was part of my limitation because I was squeezed out of some of these discussions or interrupted with the steamroller tactic, which I had to manage with Alex a little bit, how you might have responded. So that's why I say watch this with, in a certain sense, a critical eye. You can be critical of me, too. Oh, I don't think Greg did a good job there. I would have done this. Okay, fine. That's good. Think about how you would have done it, and that prepares you for the future. You may be a YouTuber yourself, engaging online. You may have other kind of forums that you take advantage of in order to make the case for Christianity and for Christ. Maybe you're just a regular fella or gal who's just got friends that you interact with. In any event, I think you will be able to benefit from this full podcast. All right. And thankfully, at the end, and I don't know how many people are going to watch for three hours and 23 minutes, I hope you do, for the reasons I suggested. But at the end, Stephen held up the story of reality right before the camera, and that made the final cut. And in a sense, that was almost the most important moment. Not so I could sell books. Of course I want to sell books, but I want to sell books because of what the book says, and that's why I wrote it, not to make a lot of money. Christian authors, that's not the Way to get rich. I'm just saying. But it's a good way to make a difference if you write well and you tell the truth. And I think the story of reality is an example of that. And I want people to get that book. Incidentally, if you're watching and you have no exposure to that, you can go to our landing page for the DOAC event. And that landing page is str.org that's our website. DOAC str.org doac and if you're not familiar with the story of reality, we have, that's a, well, that's a landing page for this event. And we say, hey, welcome. If you've never been here before, glad you're here. We have a gift for you and it's a chapter from the book and we'll send it to you, no charge. All right? And there's information is there and you could get that too. I don't care. You listen to the show all the time. You go there and get that sign up, all right? And we'll send it to you in a PDF form. So that's what I want to be. The biggest impact of my contribution three weeks ago and a day for five hours plus with eight cameras rolling, being grilled by the most well known atheist in the world at the time and of wunderkind Alex O' Connor at 26 years old and a very, very, very bright Harvard medical faculty, Buddhist, Hindu, Spiritualist in that conversation. I want people to go back to the story of reality and get a full throated characterization of Christianity from beginning to end and understand how that is going to be the only ultimate, transcendent, reliable, true and accurate source of meaning and ultimate purpose. All right, hope you watch it. Let's go to break. Greg Koukl here for Stand a reason. Stay with us.
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B
As a high school teacher, I always had a red pen close at hand. When I wasn't in front of my students teaching a lesson, you could find me assessing assignments, grading essays and evaluating exams. The red pen played a crucial role in the educational development of my students. With it, I questioned their assumptions, exposed their errors and challenged them to think critically. You see, a good teacher doesn't merely tell his students that they're wrong. A good teacher shows his students why they're wrong so they don't make the same mistakes twice. He corrects because he cares. Last year I was scrolling through social media and frankly, I was discouraged at all the bad thinking that undergirded much of what I was reading. Then it hit me. What if Someone applied the red pen to this flawed thinking and Red pen logic with Mr. B was born. In the last few months, Red Pen Logic has grown in popularity through our engaging and shareable educational graphics and videos. We are helping people, especially young people, assess bad thinking by using good thinking and we have a lot of fun in the process. So here's your homework assignment like the Red Pen Logic Facebook page so you don't miss our next graphic. And subscribe at the Red Pen PennLogic YouTube channel so you don't miss a single video. Class dismissed.
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C
Would you like an STR speaker to speak at your event? Greg, Allen, Tim and John are available both in person and online. Simply email bookingstr.org to schedule them today. Our speakers can address a wide range of topics from bioethics, gender issues and science to theology, philosophy, and how to respond to other worldviews, all from a biblical perspective. Whether it's a Sunday sermon conference or online event, we are here to equip Christians to effectively influence the culture for Christ. To explore speaker bios, learn more about the topics we cover, or discover additional options, visit str.org then email bookingstr.org to secure Greg, Allen, Tim or John for your event.
- [43:32]
A
Okay friends, Greg Kokola, back with you again here. And I think we're going to go to open mic calls and those are the calls that people leave on our website because they don't have time or opportunity or can't wait or whatever to take to be taken as a call. No, I'm thinking about to be taken to be taken as a call, not to be taken as a caller. Because I'm not here to take you down. I am here to take your call on Tuesdays between 4 and 6, which Los Angeles time, which is when we do our live show. So we give you an opportunity to go to our website str.org and under podcasts. I don't have my notes in front of me, so follow the prompts and you'll find under the live broadcast I think there's a button there for you to identify yourself, start a recording and leave your question. So let's start right at the top end of these questions we have Kyle and John Denton is number one. What do we got John?
- [44:45]
D
Hey Greg, this is John from Indio, California. I'm a longtime listener, first time caller. I'd like to see if I can get your input on a quote unquote meme that what I refer to as a pro abort responded to me with because she took exception with my categorizing the preborn child as quote, unquote, innocent. This was in an X thread, and the other pro choice folks in the thread didn't seem to know how to respond to this. I did respond to it, but I'm not satisfied with my own response, even though I believe that I know that the view expressed in the meme has major flaws. A response by you would be greatly appreciated. So this is the. I'm going to read the meme to you they're quoting.
- [45:28]
A
First.
- [45:28]
D
They start by quoting pro choice folks, quote, unquote, abortion kills innocent human beings. And then they go on to say fetuses are described as quote, unquote innocent, meaning that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being killed. Since killing anyone innocent is wrong, this suggests that abortion is wrong. Innocence, however, seems to be a concept that only applies to beings that can do wrong and choose not to. Since fetuses can't do anything, they especially cannot do anything wrong that would make them, quote, unquote guilty. The concept of innocence doesn't seem to apply to them. So saying that banning abortion would protect the innocent is inaccurate. Since abortion doesn't kill, quote, unquote innocent beings, the concept of innocence just doesn't apply. So if you could respond to that, I would really appreciate it. Thanks.
- [46:21]
A
Sure, John, thank you for that. And I'm. I'm only pausing here now, not because I don't have anything to say about this. I do as I'm. I'm trying to think why this would be significant for a pro abort, a pro choice person to bat down. Because our argument is not that abortion is wrong because innocent people are killed. That is something I certainly use in my conversations. I use the word, and I don't think it's inappropriate. In some ways, the word innocent applying to children and babies is used frequently. We're not the only ones doing it for rhetorical effect. Look at all the innocent children that got killed in the flood. Look at all the innocent children that got killed by Canaanites, for example, that got killed by the Jews. Look at all the children. Innocent, innocent. This is not just our meme, our rhetoric to make it sound really bad. This is a standard way people refer to blameless children, even if they aren't in a position to be blameworthy because they're too young. Nevertheless, it is a way of kind of looking at the tragedy or characterizing the tragedy of taking the life of a youngster, of a baby or something like that. All right, so I don't think this is illicit. And this objection if somebody wants to stand on it, well, then they're going to have to complain whenever anybody else. Complains about what? About all the innocent children that were killed in the. The Holocaust. What about all the innocent children that were killed in the taking over of the Promised Land, in the book of Joshua, etc. I mean, people use that language all the time, both sides. And I have never heard anyone ever complain that that is somehow an illicit rhetorical maneuver. Okay, be that as it may, what if I just said this, Okay, I won't use the term innocent to describe children that are not capable of being guilty. All I'll say is that abortion kills babies. Innocent. Almost said it again. Human beings. Oh, how about this? Defenseless human beings. That would apply. Valuable human beings who cannot defend themselves, who are being killed principally because they are inconvenient to their mothers. How about that? Why can't I just say, all right, if you're going to make a fuss about that, it doesn't change our argument at all. It might change a little bit the rhetorical force of the language we use. Innocent, unborn children. But if you drop the word innocent, we are still in abortion, killing unborn human beings at the earliest stages of development. Now, if innocence doesn't apply to them, it doesn't apply to a newborn either. But wouldn't it be wrong to take the life of a newborn, even though the newborn is not innocent or guilty because the term doesn't apply to them? The fact that they're a valuable human being strikes me as adequate. So people can strain at these words and make a fuss about it, but I actually don't think this requires a response. Now, I gave one in a certain sense, and my point was we're not the only ones who use the word innocent to describe young children. This is commonly used by all kinds of people when young children get killed. To say they didn't deserve it, I think is fair. They didn't deserve it because they were innocent, if you don't want to use that word. But they didn't deserve it because they're humans who had done nothing wrong to deserve it. But even if we just abandoned the word, it doesn't change our case at all. Our objection to abortion isn't that innocent people are getting killed. Our objection to abortion is that people are getting killed. Human beings is what I mean. Young people, very young people. Young human beings in the very earliest stages of development. All right, so that's all I have to say about that. All right, let me think. I've just got about eight minutes left to this hour. I want to. Let's try Hunter. He's fourth on the list there. Kyle. He has a question about Cain. Hi. Hi. My name is Hunter. I'm 11 years old and I'm wondering, would Cain, Abel's brother, go to heaven? Well, thank you, Hunter. I'm always glad when a youngster calls. You're about 11 years old, I think, based on the notes here. Thank you. And I invite you to come back whenever you want. And we have a history of entertaining calls from younger people. And it's wonderful for me to engage them and to do my best to answer. Now, Cain and Abel were the first recorded children of Adam and Eve. I don't know that they were the first children. It looks like it when you read it. Straightforward, but not necessarily. And nothing really depends on that. But they were brothers who approached God in different ways. And Cain came with the produce of the land. In other words, he wanted to sacrifice to God. Show his what? Obedience to God or his attempt at honoring God with a particular kind of sacrifice. Now, apparently, and I don't have the account right in front of me, and this was a mistake, I didn't grab my Bible. I kept it with in hand. It's over there. I'll have to get it at the break. But the point was that the offering that Cain offered was not pleasing to God. All right. I don't know all the details about that. I mean, we learn later that what God wants is the sacrifice of blood. And I think it's because the sacrifice of blood, not that the blood itself in that animal sacrifice that his brother Abel offered is the thing that ultimately saves, not the animal blood. And we learn that in the New Testament, Hunter, in the book of Hebrews, we learn that animal blood, that's not going to be adequate to do the job of giving forgiveness, because animals can't pay for people. It takes a person to pay for a person. And it takes a perfect person to pay for an imperfect person, because the perfect person doesn't have the debt himself that he has to pay. And that perfect person is Jesus, who shed his blood, which means he died on our behalf so that we could be forgiven. But in the Old Testament, we have a picture of this kind of preparing people's thinking for the time when the perfect sacrifice would come. And the first evidence we have is this evidence with Cain and Abel. And Cain brought an offering, and Abel did too. And Abel's offering was different. Abel brought a blood sacrifice. And in the back of my mind, I'm Wondering, am I getting these two names mixed up? I think Cain was the bad guy, right? Yeah. And Abel's offering was the kind of offering that God wanted. And so God accepted Abel's offering and not Cain's. Now, I think Cain could have learned from this and could have provided an appropriate sacrifice, but he didn't. He got mad. And because he got angry because his brother had bested him in some way, it really bothered him. He was jealous, he was angry, he was put off, and so he murdered his brother. So the murdering of his brother, I think showed the evidence of where his heart actually was. Abel has an acceptable sacrifice. Cain did not. Cain wasn't willing to change, to give an acceptable sacrifice, to do what God wanted instead of, in a sense, repenting from that and doing what God wanted. In that circumstance, he simply got mad at his brother who was accepted by God and he killed his brother. This evidenced or was an evidence of Cain's heart. And his heart was dark and his heart was black and he was a murderer. And because he was a murderer and nothing good is said about him, and there's no clear evidence that he really was trying to make a difference and do what God wanted and come to him in faith, as Abel had done, I have no reason to think that he's in heaven. Abel, yes. Not Kane. Anyway, Hunter, thanks for that. Great question. Greg Kokel here for Stand a Reason. Give him heaven, friends. Bye bye now. Sam.